Is it possible that Governments and Health Officials are getting such a backlash about smoking bans that they are tripping over themselves with science by press release just to TRY to prove themselves right? They know it is as much baloney as we do, but they have a reputation to uphold and money to make. How can they expect promotion amoung the ranks of tobacco control if they have nothing to show for it?
Michael Siegel: Can you imagine if the tobacco industry practiced this strategy? (of science by press release)
The industry does worse, it releases new products without any scientific evidence or "peer reiview" of their health effects at all.
They've used the entire population as guinea pigs for decades continue to do it today.
Abert - The industry does worse, it releases new products without any scientific evidence or "peer reiview" of their health effects at all.
Abert,
nice, concise criticism of Big Pharma and their paid marketeers the Tobacco Control Industry.
Thanks
GreatScot
Abert, you are so right, the pharmaceutical companies are getting away with fast tracking drugs with a bare minimum of research and testing, much of the data being suppressed.
Article on Pharma Guinea-pigging:
http://www.newyorker.com/
reporti...fa_fact_elliott
"Smoky bar triggered fatal asthma attack.
First case of secondhand smoke causing an immediate death, study says."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/2307...5001/?
GT1=10856
Lets be *Very. very clear* on one thing.
Absolutely no mention of *POLLUTION* as being the main cause of asthma.
Doc. Rip em a new one. They're beggin for it.
Keep up the GREAT work of exposing these numbnuts and their blatant Stupidity, in trying to replace Science with Deep deep piles of Manure.
Abert,
here's another.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/
...highereducation
Excerpt
Orphans and babies as young as three months old have been used as guinea pigs in potentially dangerous medical experiments sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.
But that's ok, after all it's "for the children"
GreatScot
Abert - CHANTRIX !FANCY TRYING IT OUT ?
The French smoker ban came into force on January 1st 2008 not 2007
Speakin about the Scourge of our planet, Big Pharma, I did a Stand-up Comedy routine about em.
(Language is raw, (but that is our reality) so if you're offended by harsh language, set your handy dandy internal Brain filter to: I AM OFFENDED BY HARSH LANGUAGE AND DON'T RACE REALITY mode when watching it. That should do the trick.)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TG...h?
v=TGQ_b3Ecs8M
The French smoker ban came into force on January 1st 2008 not 2007
Well spotted JM. 15% reduction in heart attacks in 6 weeks (taking 2 off for the counting)! WOW is that a new record Doc?
GreatScot
I think public health officials in France would be better served to figure out why the smoking ban is not working as well as it should be,
How well should it be working? For some it shouldn't be working at all and so perhaps it is working better than it should?
and spend some time trying to actually enforce the law, rather than bragging about it.
Perhaps they are not coercing people enough?
Add another bit to the costs, contempt for the law.
Seems the costs just keep on going up and the benefits seem to evaporate, don't they?
Perhaps there are better ways?
west
----
This is the same tactic used for demonstrating no loss of business as the result of a ban.
Ignore all obvious contributing factors and focus on only one that will get the best possible press.
By looking only at the tax revenue generated by small businesses, and very selectively at that, clearly there is no loss of revenue.
But, if you figure in the staff reductions, reduced operating hours, reduced amount of stock required, and an across the board price increase to make up for the losses before any tax reporting is made to the state, then all appears right with the world when TC trumpets the tax data as proof.
Of course, all those businesses that closed were due to mis-management, or always some other non-smoking related cause. It's always something other than the inquisition.
"Smoky bar triggered fatal asthma attack.
First case of secondhand smoke causing an immediate death, study says."
Ah, is this the case that actually happened in 2004 and is being bandied about as having happened recently? (lying by ommission).
"On May 1, 2004, a 19-year-old African-American female waitress working at a bar died from an asthma attack."
There are LIES,damned LIES and those told by PUBLIC HEALTH.
For clarity: the French enacted a workplace smoker ban on Jan 1 2007.
The ban that came into force on Jan 1 2008 was for pubs/clubs/bistros etc.
The "study" is still very premature as it only covers 12 months.
Abert commented: "The industry does worse, it releases new products without any scientific evidence or "peer reiview" of their health effects at all."
Abert - I'm not sure why that's so unacceptable. If we allow the industry to market products that we know are deadly and kill 400,000 people a year, what does it matter whether the new products are healthy or not? As long as they are not representing the products as being safer, then I don't see the problem.
I sent an e-mail to the contact person listed on the ESC press release requesting a copy of (or weblink for) the underlying research/data finding a 15% decline in MI and stroke admissions to French hospitals since the country's smokefree law was implemented.
Smoky bar triggered fatal asthma attack
"According to the medical officers report, the victim's father had seen her at 9:30 pm and stated that she was having breathing problems at that time"
http://www.oem.msu.edu/MiFace/
04...rtrev8_1_07.pdf
Very sad thing to have happened.
Bill,
I am so sure they seen your email and said, "Oh my God, we got mail from Bill Godshall, jump on his request and get it to him, stat!" I am sure you think you are as important as you try to sound.
Colin is right, the pub and restaurant ban was Jan, 1st, 2008. Workplace was 2007.
LighteningBoy was also very correct in what is not looked at when bragging about how successful the smoking ban is. To many losses for business owners and for the life of me, I can't help but wonder what kind of stamina LighteningBoy uses to get up and go at it day after day. I do feel his pain.
Mike wrote:
"If we allow the industry to market products that we know are deadly and kill 400,000 people a year, what does it matter whether the new products are healthy or not? As long as they are not representing the products as being safer, then I don't see the problem."
That's the same position of CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA in supporting the PM backed FDA tobacco legislation (that specifically prohibits any tobacco product from being marketed as less hazardous than any another tobacco product).
Since smokeless tobacco products are clearly less hazardous than cigarettes, why shouldn't the manufacturer be permitted to truthfully claim that the product is a less hazardous alternative to cigarettes (as that's not only true, but it can save smoker's lives)?
Only the cigarette industry (and particularly Philip Morris) benefits (and smokers lose) when smokers are misled about the comparable risks of different tobacco products.
That's also why it has been counterproductive (i.e. by protecting the cigarette industry) and unethical for health agencies and organizations to intentionally mislead smokers (and the public) into believing that smokeless tobacco products are just as hazardous as cigarettes.
Bill G, like any good salesman, never miss an opportunity to pimp his wares.
Bill - but it can save smoker's lives)?
Bill, if I started using smokeless tomorrow in lieu of cigarettes will I live forever? If not can you please tell me when and of what I will die? Will my children and family grieve less when I die of a smokeless related disease?
GreatScot
Bill aren't smokeless products deemed as being Not a SAFE alternative to cigarettes ? How big is a risk ? How safe is safe ? TC can spin this for years,they already have.
Damn i've shrunk again.
If the restaurant/cafe/pub smoking ban came into effect only in January 2008, then the claim of a 15% decline in heart attacks due to the ban becomes even less plausible. We're only talking about one two months at the most. I will look into this more and see if I can figure it all out.
Abert,
more info for you campaign against Big Pharma.
http://themoderatevoice.com/soci...s-under-attack/
Excerpt
Obviously people just can’t go off drugs even though many of these could be dummy pills. It is an addiction/dependence worse than alcohol and smoking because for decades the people have been indoctrinated into believing in the miracle of these drugs. One can understand the profit motive. But if the industry does not care about social responsibility, then how is it different from ordinary criminals?
GreatScot
After reading how deadly smoking is in some of the above posts, I thought of comments national syndicated radio host Dr. Dean Edell made during a 2001 interview with the "Buffalo News when asked about the dangers of secondhand smoke:"
Is secondhand smoke a threat?
"Secondhand smoke stinks -- but is it killing people? There was a study of the wives of the smokers -- they have crummy health habits. They eat terrible diets of meat and fat, they don't get any exercise, but when they show up with worse health statistics, it's blamed on secondhand smoke, not on all the other factors.
"We don't even know how cigarettes affect us. We don't know what causes cancer. We don't know what causes the increase in heart disease. It's not nicotine -- nicotine gum actually helps heart disease patients. Carbon monoxide? Well, any kind of smoke has a lot of carbon monoxide -- that's a possibility -- but carbon monoxide has a temporary effect; it blocks the oxygen linking to your hemoglobin, then you take a breath of fresh air and it goes away.
"Is that the cause of chronic problems in smokers? We don't know -- now we're into secondhand smoke when we don't even know what firsthand smoke does. I think we're becoming a really, really neurotic, fearful people, and politicians and the media love it and know how to feed that monster."
Bill, If you want the 'less harmful' point of smokeless to be acknowledged you better get the smokeless companies to pony up more dinero for TC...
TC and Big Tobacco are in cahoots. We all know who pays TC, it's the system where smokers dollars filter through Big Tobacco and lands in the ashtray of TC.
Dear Mr. Siegel:
The full "study" is available here: http://www.la-croix.com/illustra.../2/24/
tabac.pdf
It should be noted that it's author, pneumology professor Bertrand Dautzenberg, was not only one of the main instigators of the french smoking ban, but alos is on the payroll of Pfizer, via a 100% Pfizer financed journal he directs.He is also theoretically viable of a law suit for publicly advertising Champix in television and radio shows ( french law, contrary to US, forbids advertisement for prescription drugs).
A coulpe of days ago I posted a kind of request. Maybe you haven't read it, since it's buried in a avalanche of messages.
1.) When will you write a peer-reviewed article about this AMI reduction scan business? When one links to your blog, one invariably hears: it's just a blog, the Piedmont-Helena-whatever study is a peer-reviewed article in a prestigious scientific journal.
2.) Did you read the Glantz-Dinno "metastudy" about AMI effects of smoking bans? This study, pooling conclusions from Helena-Pueblo-Bowling Green-Piedmont, seems even more outrageuous in that it pools completely heterogenous data and methodologies. When will we have your take on this?
Thanks
Michael Siegel wrote:
"If the restaurant/cafe/pub smoking ban came into effect only in January 2008..."
Without looking it up, that's the way I remember the story. Your brain must me going south. LOL
"Since smoking rates reportedly did not decline..."
But according to Bill Godshall, that's one of the benefits of smoking bans; smoking rates go down. And according to him, US data can be substituted in for Italy and I would assume, France data.
"That's scientifically implausible."
Words first used about the Helena Miracle.
Concerning the 35% only reduction of SHS exposure in french restaurants, and the stated faulty observance of the ban:
I live in France, and can assure that compliance is near 100%. Over the whole of France, there are maybe 3 or 4 bars that overtly rebel against the ban.I once was in a bar in Paris where an older lady lit up. Nobody noticed it. But when the waiter picked up the cup with the butt inside, he warned her that the next time he'd kick her out.These things mau happen, but they are very, very rare. Also, all newspaper report that compliance is 100%, but we don't trust newsparpers anymore, do we?
OT Stan Glantz and the movies.
http://www.wisn.com/family/15368...708/
detail.html
Can some one explain the logic?
Excerpt
"If you go back to 1950 and look at how much smoking there was in the movies then, when almost half the population was smoking, and then you jump forward to the year 2000 or 2002, which is the last time we quantified it … it was back about where it was in 1950," said Glantz.
During that time, according to Glantz, the percentage of Americans who smoke dropped from around 45 percent to around 20 percent.
"A kid going to the movies today would think smoking is about as widespread and normative as it was in 1950," said Glantz.
Smoking in the movies is as prevalent now as it was in 1950. "Real" smoking rates have reduced over time from 45% to 20%. So what is his point? Is he saying that smoking in the movies has nothing to do with smoking prevalence?
And I just love his sideswipe at smoking normativeness.
Clown!
I also re-confirm that while the work-place smoking ban was enacted on Feb. 1 2007, bar-restaurant ban was enacted on Jan. 2 2008. So indeed, this study pretends to investigate the effects of the ban after 6 weeks.
1.) Many, maybe most workplaces, were already smoke-free before the ban, or they had a small smoker-room for breaks. Pr. Dautzenberg publicly acknowledged the official data that showed that this ban had no effect whatsoever on AMI admissions, whereas a year earlier he predicted that the first year alone would save 6000 to 7000 lives. (I have the links to this if desired).Maybe this "study" is a desperate attempt to refute thie prior evidence.
2.) But on the other hand, most bar-restaurants were smoky before the ban. They did have a law that required separated smoking sections, this never was the case in bars, and quite loosely enacted in restaurants.
I have just (2 hours ago) returned from a business trip to Paris.
"The fact that secondhand smoke levels declined by only about 35% in restaurants seems to suggest that the smoking ban was quite ineffective."
Compared to what? I have not found one single restaurant in Paris where even a single person smoked inside. None. So it seems to me that compliance is 100%.
Smoking in offices was out even before this new law, in most cases on a volontary basis.
During my business trip to Paris, we were a whole group standing outside of the restaurant discussing. Some smokers lit up their cigarettes and of course all non-smokers got their whiffs of SHS.
Then we decided to have an after dinner drink in the Cafe of the Louvre. Nice atmosphere, candles on all tables. One of my colleagues who had discussed with me beforehand without minding my smoking, had to leave the Cafe after less than 1 minute because he was struck by an acute and threatening allergy attack - from the scented candles.
Talk about SHS ....
Instead of spending their time taking credit for a decline in heart attacks which has little to do with the smoking ban, I think public health officials in France would be better served to figure out why the smoking ban is not working as well as it should be, and spend some time trying to actually enforce the law, rather than bragging about it.
I've had to let this stew all day because my initial reaction was NOT nice at all.
Tell me doc, exactly HOW is the smoking ban supposed to be working? Are you upset that throwing us out into the cold nights on the streets open to muggings, etc wasn't enough to force us to actually quit?
Enforce the law? How? Put law-abiding citizens in jail because they choose to use a legal product and a private business owner chooses to not let the state/govt steal his property rights?
Dr. Siegel states:
This is really getting ridiculous, and out of control. The days of tobacco control science appear to be over. Now, it appears to be just a public relations game.
IS GETTING????? Doc, the lies of your people have been out of control for years and your continued feigned naivete is far beyond old. Science by press release has been the stock in trade of the anti-smoker cartel for so long that the other fear mongers have now picked up on it. Have you looked at the press release science in the media about global warming, obesity, various vaccines, etc., etc., of late?
You have much to be proud of..........(this is sarcasm folks)
I would point out that based on my long experience in tobacco control, this was not previously the modus operandi.
I will not call you a liar, Dr. Siegel, but I will tell you that you are 100% wrong in this statement. This has been the modus operandi of the anti-smoker cartel (your precious TC movement) for as long as I have been dealing with it, and as this is 2008 that time is now 21 years. In legislative chambers, on the pages of newspapers, on radio and TV, let alone the internet, I have repeatedly called your movement on the propaganda and lies only to be "refured" with more propaganda and lies.
I'm a private citizen employed by NO ONE in regard to this issue, and thus my comments are my own. Yet I'm willing to face the forces of million dollar ad campaigns and paid puppets to stand up for what I believe.
And I believe that you and all of your kind are WRONG and many of you will eventually be found guilty of wrongdoing, either criminally or civially. Your movement has become evil personified and as long as you personally insist on being considered one of the members of it, you will remain in that category to me, no matter how much I think you're a great guy.
For the record, I agree with Bill that tobacco companies should be able to make scientifically-founded statements about the relative risks of their products (such as smokeless tobacco and snus).
TC claims smoking bans are good for business.
If smokers are not affected because they are outside smoking, the effects would have to reside with non smokers exclusively. If business is improving after the ban again only non smokers would be affected.
However the increased attendance at a bar would seem to increase the population's heart attack risk, not reduce it?
The question remains what were non smokers doing which could have increased their heart risks prior to increasing the levels of bar attendance.
If reductions of ETS is having an effect, it could only be seen in non smokers, so are we to understand the lobbies are trying to present the idea non smokers, all too often in spite of serious heart conditions, are still drinking in the bars?
How do you tax them to offset the costs?
Or is the more obvious reality; that the only way smoking bans could be reducing heart attacks, would be if the bars are emptying out, is a more suitable explanation to the situation.
Bill;
"That's also why it has been counterproductive (i.e. by protecting the cigarette industry) and unethical for health agencies and organizations to intentionally mislead smokers (and the public) into believing that smokeless tobacco products are just as hazardous as cigarettes."
Why don't you take some good advice for a change Bill, read what it says on the label and put your paranoia aside.
What does it say on the label?
Last Time I checked it said clearly; "not a safer alternative to smoking."
Buy yourself some patches or gum the only legitimate substitutes and much less harmful too.
OT but important news:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNe...ews.dbm?
ID=1453
68% oppose FDA regulation of tobacco
brandz
Michael Siegel wrote:
"For the record, I agree with Bill that tobacco companies should be able to make scientifically-founded statements about the relative risks of their products (such as smokeless tobacco and snus)."
But will people be able to understand them? I recall you implying that bartenders aren't smart enough to understand the relative risks of SHS. And that was with as many pages of info as needed to get the point across.
at this juncture, I'm not as sure as the Doc is that a peer-reviewed study is any more reliable than a press release. Peer reviewed by whom? (Glantz and Repace?) Published in a journal that agrees with the agenda-at-all-costs or, conversely, is intimidated by what happened to Smith when he published Enstrom/Kabat?
Helena was peer-reviewed, wasn't it?
While I mournfully accept benpal and beisha's (sorry if I've got the spelling wrong) word that France is now as sterile as a baby bottle, I still have to comment on the Doc's suggestion that:
public health officials in France would be better served to figure out why the smoking ban is not working as well as it should be, and spend some time trying to actually enforce the law, rather than bragging about it.
But since the law, when enforced, does not result in lower heart attack rates (as you seem to admit) nor even (as you all not-so-secretly intend) in lower smoking rates, what would be the point in stringently enforcing it? Except, of course, that enforcing it ensures that smokers will be outcasts?
Movies have as much smoking as they did 50 years ago? That's as big a whopper as the 30 minute heart attack, and presumes that none of us ever go to movies and are merely left to read about them in academic journals and blindly accept the conclusions of The Experts.
Quick. Anyone. When's the last time you saw a movie where a contemporary hero or heroine smoked? Even once, let alone repeatedly? Hard even to find smoking villains any more.
Seriously. Name three....two... one.
;
You will all be relieved to know Listerine has launched a "Mild" product.
Thanks be to Allah they finally made it less harmful
I was really sweating up a storm before mild came along.
I hope ASH doesn't get wind of the news. We will be forced to use the more dangerous full strength Listerine like they did to us with the more dangerous cigarettes we have to use, since they banned the obviously safer light and mild ones.
Bast..ds!!!
New national TV kids program from the BBC. Called "The Smoke House". It's a reality show where kids are encouraged to pester their parents into quitting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/pag.../
b0091xk0.shtml
this is episode 2 of 10 and the link will only last a week.
There's talk of how kids can have ponies and stuff if they push their parents enough and at 9 minutes into it the program even proudly announces that they're going to start taunting the smokers.
and here we have the next national TV program intending to shame.
The "Tonight" program scheduled for Monday March the 3rd entitled Mums on the booze.
It says:
Binge drinking teenagers get their fair share of press coverage, but should their parents also be placed under the spotlight? Tonight turns the tables and gets the children from three families to capture their mothers drinking habits on camera. Mum-of-three Anne Collins is typical of the women featured. She would never consider herself a binge drinker, but she does drink a few glasses of wine most weekday evenings, and a bottle at the weekends-it helps her relax. Tonight reporter Nicky Taylor investigates what harm Anne and the other mums are doing to their bodies, and asks how much booze is too much.
Once the rot starts where the hell does it stop!
GreatScot
GreatScot
Around the time of the next election at a guess, people of all persuasions are heartily sick of this.
By the way you may have noticed that article about political astroturfing I posted the other day.
As an experiment I posted the link on a thread where the antis were going to town on the objectors, instant silence.Looks like my hunch may have been right.
Documentary shows activists writing letters to newspapers and posing as 'local people'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
politi...uk.election2005
The 'health' officials in France do not care how strongly enforced the antismoking law is. They know, just as I do, that ETS is harmless.
Rose;
"By the way you may have noticed that article about political astro turfing I posted the other day."
Check out Bill Godshall's site, he has been using astro turfing tactics in deceiving the public and politicians for years.
http://www.smokefree.net/bg-anno...ounce/messages/
He has moved on now to deceiving and lying to smokers directly, trying to say his promoted and highly toxic product [by all legitimate accounts], is safer than cigarettes, despite the warning label on the tin which proves him to be lying and quite likely flouting federal law. A "scofflaw" [His term]if I have ever seen one.
Rose, thanks for that link. It is a page right out of tobacco control and Ash's playbook. I remember reading something like this a couple of years ago. If my memory serves me right, it was in New Hampshire the last time they said NO to a smoking ban. The year prior to saying YES to a ban. The Legislators (Republican controlled) was recieving numerous emails in favor of a ban and some that were against it was recieving calls at their homes, calling them murderers. They traced some of the email addresses and found that they were all be written by the same person, but being signed with different names. I believe that Harry is from New Hampshire and if he ever visits us and sees this, maybe he can confirm it. Miss hearing from you Harry.
Keep up to date on astro turfing targets here;
http://www.smokefree.net/alerts.php
Shameful and pitiful at the same time, people encouraged to vote often, and once or twice for every one of their children and relatives [living or deceased]in many cases.
Its all gooood
Diane
Strangely enough, I'm not convinced that its ASH UK.
I do think people should be warned though, those comments from activists are designed to be very hurtful, then smokers who see them won't take the choreographed abuse so much to heart.
In other news
New Study: How Cigarette Smoke Causes Cancer
"Everyone has known for decades that smoking causes cancer, but until now no one really understood how cigarette smoke causes healthy lung cells to become cancerous. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, show that hydrogen peroxide in cigarette smoke causes lung cancer"
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/...icles/
99050.php
This was a new one one me, there was certainly no hydrogen peroxide in my plants.
"An improved process for expanding tobacco is disclosed wherein tobacco components such as stems, midribs and veins are contacted with an alkaline-hydrogen peroxide solution and thereafter dried and roasted to produce an expanded tobacco material highly suitable for use in smoking products" http://www.freepatentsonline.com...om/
4388933.html
Though I may well be wrong, I can't find any evidence of hydrogen peroxide being used in cigarettes before 1982.
So how do we explain Doll's borrowed theory?
Thanks for the link Anonymous, thats very disturbing, the healthcult is clearly trying to subvert democracy, I suggest a copy of that be sent to everyone named on it.
""Everyone has known for decades that smoking causes cancer," THE JUDGE IN THE McTear case didn't,hence the LAW stated Imperial Tobacco was not guilty,much to ASH (UK)'s chagrin.They are once again touting for clients to try another legal challenge.CAUSALITY has not been proven,whether the rantis like it or not.It is statistical with added bias.Repeat a lie often enough,and you will know it comes from TC.
It's all in the tar, Flea. The dark stuff that comes up and out in the morning. About a quart's worth in a year.
Bill's right that if all smokers switched to chew, ther'd be a lot less cancer, more of the oral variety but certainly less overall. But think of the sight of lots of people in a bar spitting into a papercup. It'd make us remember fondly the smoke in a bar.
Rose rightly noted, "I can't find any evidence of hydrogen peroxide being used in cigarettes before 1982."
I can't find any evidence of hydrogen peroxide being used for tobacco conditioning after 1982 either.
http://www.google.com/patents?
vi...id=USPAT4388933
It's one thing to have a patent. That doesn't mean it is economical. It sounds like it would cost more to treat the tobacco than the tobacco would be worth. Still, it's patentable.
A lot of other interesting links on the page linked above.
I don't have a clue how 1 or 2 days of exposure to tobacco smoke produces a reaction in lung cells. Except in the case where the lung cells are never allowed to exhale.
E=MC^2
Briggs et al
"For frequentists, probability is de ned to be the frequency with which an event
happens in the limit of experiments" where that event can happen; that is, given
that you run a number of experiments" that approached in nity, then the ratio of
those experiments in which the event happens to the total number of experiments
is de ned to be the probability that the event will happen. There is a precise
mathematical de nition of these terms, but this is the gist of it. Now, once this
mathematical de nition is in place, it is easy to start creating and proving theorems,
which are mathematical statements that are the result of the given de nition. I
must stress that this is a perfectly legitimate activity: the theorems that arise from
frequentist probability are of interest as mathematical objects, if for no other reason.
Just as are the theorems from any branch of mathematics. Frequentist probability
statements are, therefore, true, given its de nition of probability is true.
But this does not imply, and it is not true, that these mathematical probability
statements therefore have any connection with reality, or with any physical coun-
terparts. We must never mistake math for reality! Sometimes, mathematics and
reality match up very well: in fact, an entire branch of math has sprung up out of
this idea; it's called, not surprisingly, applied mathematics. And you already know
that a lot of mathematics exists solely for itself; it's usually called pure mathematics.
Applications arising from pure math are, then, usually unintentional. Frequentist
probability and statistics theory is also pure mathematics in this sense."
In more concise terms Mathematics is simply the result of an applied opinion expressed in numeric terms. In a view of epidemiological perspectives opinions are not factual or connected to the physical or to any sense of reality. Therefore the calculations conjure no facts, only eloquently presented opinions in order to mystify the audience and insert false realities, which amounts to statistical fraud.
Bill's right that if all smokers switched to chew, ther'd be a lot less cancer, more of the oral variety but certainly less overall.
Geo, you can absolutely guarantee that? You have proof that this is true?
Do you honestly believe that cancer rates will fall if everyone stopped smoking cigarettes? Are you truly THAT naive to believe that cigarette smoke causes anything, let alone is the sole cause of anything?
GreatScot,
People outside the UK can't view that show:
"Rights agreements mean that BBC iPlayer television programmes are only available to users to download or stream (Click to Play) in the UK. However, BBC Worldwide is working on an international version, which we will make available as soon as possible."
But thanks anyway.
Rose,
There's no way hydrogen peroxide remains hydrogen peroxide after that process. If there's any H2O2 in tobacco smoke, it would have to be forming during the combustion process and I don't know if it'd survive those temperatures. I wish I could remember my chemistry, but it might even cause the cigarette to start on fire when the extra oxygen molecule is released. LOL
In one the articles I read, after reading your link, it said those cells were exposed to either tobacco smoke or H2O2 and the results were similar. So I'm not sure they're even saying H2O2 is in tobacco smoke.
Lynda F,
Bill has stated more than once he receives no funding. You should leave it at that.
And if he's living off his wife, I'd say, Lucky him. LOL
Geo wrote:
"Bill's right that if all smokers switched to chew, ther'd be a lot less cancer, more of the oral variety but certainly less overall."
I thought smoking carried a larger risk for oral cancer than smokeless? If so, oral cancer cases could possibly go down.
James
If the hydrogen peroxide thing is correct, then hairdressers and their clients are in deadly danger.
As far as oral cancers go it seems that if you are warning drinkers, its alcohol, or if you are warning smokers its tobacco.
"Small bags of tobacco were banned in Britain in 1990 after the US Smokeless Tobacco company tried to introduce sweet-flavoured tobacco capsules called Skoal Bandits. It was feared that they would appeal to children"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
tol...icle1785028.ece
Anonymous wrote:
"Check out Bill Godshall's site, he has been using astro turfing tactics in deceiving the public and politicians for years.
http://www.smokefree.net/bg-anno...ounce/messages/
He has moved on now to deceiving and lying to smokers directly, trying to say his promoted and highly toxic product [by all legitimate accounts], is safer than cigarettes, despite the warning label on the tin which proves him to be lying and quite likely flouting federal law."
In fact, the 1986 Congressionally mandated warning label (that was enacted due to lobbying by anti smokeless crusaders who greatly exaggerated the risks of smokeless tobacco products by misrepresenting scientific findings) required two misleading warnings on all smokeless tobacco products in the US.
"This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes" and
"This product can cause mouth cancer"
While no tobacco product is a safe alternative to cigarettes, the mortality risk attributable to smokeless tobacco product use is at least 90% lower than for cigarette smoking.
And while the oral cancer mortality risk attributable to smokeless tobacco product use (in the US) is about 30% greater than for never-tobacco-use, the oral cancer mortality risk attributable to cigarette smoking is at least 5 times greater than for smokeless tobacco use.
Unfortunately for consumer and public health, those misleading warnings on smokeless tobacco packages have duped 85% of smokers into believing that smokeless tobacco products are just as, if not more, hazardous than cigarettes.
Re Bill's funding: Bill's position as an activist is prominent enough and his statement on his general lack of funding clear enough that I believe him. There'd obviously be too much to lose in terms of the value of his contribution to the movement for him to consistently misrepresent that. However, I do *not* know if he has ever stated clearly that he's *never* gotten funding for any sort of chew court testimony or writing or such... care to make that clear Bill? Just so we have it out there?
Regarding Diane's question about the Anti who bombarded legislators from different email names pretending to be a "mass movement". I can't figure out a way to track the news item down in my rather scrambled database, but I do remember the story although no particular details other than that it concerned something like 3,000+ email messages that this one fanatic sent. I have a vague memory that the story came out of Canada but I might be wrong.
Re getting a peer-reviewed study out there criticizing this French nonsense: Good Luck! Dave K. and I have spent the last two years trying to get our massive and openly-designed, fully-verifiable counterstudy to Helena into the medical journals. Our most notable response came from the editor at the British Medical Journal who wrote to us after our article was reviewed by something called a "mini-hanging committee". Basically they claimed that a complete reversal of the Helena claims "added nothing new" or of "interest to the general reader" concerning smoking bans and heart attacks.
See the American Council On Science And Health article at:
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/
n...news_detail.asp
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://pasan.TheTruthIsALie.com
In fact, the 1986 Congressionally mandated warning label (that was enacted due to lobbying by anti smokeless crusaders who greatly exaggerated the risks of smokeless tobacco products by misrepresenting scientific findings) required two misleading warnings on all smokeless tobacco products in the US.
ROFLMLWAO This is just tooo funny for words. I almost fell off my chair laughing. THIS from someone who does the exact same thing regarding cigarettes?
Bill, pot - kettle - black; hypocrite; delusional......these seem fitting descriptives for you.
Rose,
As I'm sure you've heard, in the US, the antis call "sweet-flavoured tobacco," "candy-flavored." LOL
MJM,
Yes, I don't know if Bill G. has ever said if he received money, or got a low-interest loan (like Cheryl H. from ALF did), or anything like that, for his tireless work promoting smokeless tobacco, but really, what difference does it make? I don't think he's ever lied or exaggerated anything about smokeless, other than in my opinion the amount of people who'd actually use it in place of smoking.
He should have, in fact, been compensated for his work with Rodu. I'm sure Smokeless hired Rodu/both of them with the thought of profiting from their work.
The WHO in their decisive wisdom decided in 1978 that smoking CAUSED lung cancer,yet legally this is tosh http://www.publications.parliame.../27/
9120904.htm
Bill Godshall wrote of the official warning about chew, "This product can cause mouth cancer", calling it was "misleading", despite saying, "the oral cancer mortality risk attributable to smokeless tobacco product use (in the US) is about 30% greater than for never-tobacco-use"
So I guess Bill must obviously ALSO agree that the statement "Secondhand smoke can cause cancer" is ALSO misleading... since even using the EPA's distorted figures the claim is only for a 19% increased risk after 40 years of exposure in conditions of far poorer ventilation/filtration than would be acceptable today.
So Bill, are we going to see you now helping us by preaching that secondhand smoke causing cancer is "misleading" people?
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://pasan.TheTruthIsALie.com
To James Austin, re Bill's compensation: James, I fully agree. I would see nothing wrong with him having had financial connections with smokeless tobacco (and to be clear, I have NEVER seen any evidence that he has, just remarks made about it... which is why I think he might be helped with a completely clear statement).
- MJM
I can only say that I am thankful that I am not Bill's Dentist and I hope to God that he uses floss on a regular basis, especially before enjoying a meal. I consider chew tobacco to be extremely gross and have no desire to see anyone put it in their mouths. That is what wrigley gum is for!
Ditto what Diane said. It is truly disgusting to watch someone using/spitting chew. Yet, I don't hear anyone hollering for bans on it.
You see Bill, it's perfectly acceptable to hate something, and still allows others who enjoy it to use it.
And spare us the "killing others" garbage, as I've said elsewhere, I have 3 living, breathing, healthy generations of "victims" to prove you wrong.
Bill;
"While no tobacco product is a safe alternative to cigarettes, the mortality risk attributable to smokeless tobacco product use is at least 90% lower than for cigarette smoking.
And while the oral cancer mortality risk attributable to smokeless tobacco product use (in the US) is about 30% greater than for never-tobacco-use, the oral cancer mortality risk attributable to cigarette smoking is at least 5 times greater than for smokeless tobacco use.
Unfortunately for consumer and public health, those misleading warnings on smokeless tobacco packages have duped 85% of smokers into believing that smokeless tobacco products are just as, if not more, hazardous than cigarettes."
As you should well know the lobby against chew was because children were the majority of victims.
I have yet to see non political research, defining a mouth cancer risk due to smoking beyond insignificant levels, this is far from the reality of chew risk numbers.
As Stanton Glanz claimed recently the increased lifetime risk of smoking is .89 while ETS is .30 Your claim of 30% above the non expossed numbers being less risky than the smoking risk by five times, is incredibly short sighted, when you add a time line analysis.
30% increased risk which only takes 3 or 4 years to develop Cancer, whereas smoking takes 30 or more years means chew could be much more dangerous in the long run with many more people getting cancers in the same time frame. When you compare the numbers of those exposed one to one, is the risk you claim still lower?
Not likely when you look at the totals in equal proportions.
They just make a larger issue in regards to smoking because Lung cancers are less survivable than mouth cancers however quality of life after half your face is removed often is a motivation, causing death from a number of non smoking related diseases.
Chew is a product sold for kids in baseball parks, Increased distribution and promotion will bring it back into those venues first and foremost.
If "protecting children" is on the plate and legitimately sought, beyond it's value as a sound bite.
You should seriously reconsider harping in favor of it's use. Most adults quit spitting in their late teens, when dating becomes a highly significant incentive, because as spitters, they are judged to be gross.
In a sense of fashion or appearance and acceptability, smoking would win that battle hands down. Which realistically could give the smoking risk association an increased edge by appearances alone.
It's an extremely hard product to sell to women which means as an alternative product you have a definite obstacle on your hands.
It is interesting to note your observations of how the product was demonized. Could you examine smoking and see if you can find similar tactics used to demonize smoking as well. Not much research is available along those lines. I am certain news venues would fight for the chance at an exclusive once someone does the analysis.
I don't see how Bill can find these 2 statements misleading:
"This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes" and
"This product can cause mouth cancer"
Smokeless tobacco is NOT a SAFE alternative to cigarettes. That is a completely truthful and accurate statement.
Smokeless tobacco CAN cause mouth cancer. That, too, is a completely truthful and accurate statement.
While I agree with Bill that smokeless tobacco use may pose less overall health risks than cigarette smoking, I fail to see how those 2 particular statements are misleading.
If the statement said: "Smokeless tobacco is not a SAFER alternative to smoking," then I might see Bill's point.
Or if the 2nd statement said: "Smokeless tobacco does not pose LESS of a risk of oral cancer than smoking."
But the statements do not say that. Thus, I fail to see how they are misleading.
On the other hand, the French smoking ban report and pres release are EXCEEDINGLY misleading.
Diane wrote:
"I can only say that I am thankful that I am not Bill's Dentist..."
Bill does NOT use chew/snuff/snus. He merely promotes it as a substitute for smoking.
Dr. Siegel,
I think Bill's so wrapped up in his 'smokers to smokeless' crusade that when he says those statements are misleading, he's thinking only in terms of smokers.
I mean he's absolutely wrong about those statements being misleading, but he's so focused on his mission that he's unaware of anyone but the smokers he's trying to snuff out. To smokers, and smokers alone, those statements are almost false.
"I would point out that based on my long experience in tobacco control, this was not previously the modus operandi. In the "old" days, we were very hesitant to release findings to the public before the study had been peer reviewed."
Of course not! That would be outrageous. Dr. Siegel is obviously pining for the good ol' days when an activist, who hasn't been a real doctor in years, could stand behond closed doors before the Board of Health and spew admittedly flawed data from an unpublished study to cronies who knew the data was flawed, and get smoking banned anyway, in bars none of them would ever set foot in.
Without any input from the people affected. Sigh...those were the days.
Colin Grainger wrote: The "study" is still very premature as it only covers 12 months.
I had to laugh when I saw this! I remember when these first studies came out and all the tobacco folks complained that they were only 6 months long, and that was obvious mistake, and how a 1 year study was required! This was one of the complaints about the Helens study. Now, the French have done the one year study, and now you claim that is not long enough!
What desperation! If someone did a 2 year study that showed a drop, you would ask for a 3 year! If they did a 5 year, you'd want a 10 year, and so on.
My count is that there are now over 6 peer-reviewed studies showing a drop in heart attacks after a ban. (I'm not counting the French study, because I have not yet seen it in peer-reviewed print.) There are zero peer-reviewed studies showing heart attacks stayed the same or went up.
(Although I know two pro-tabacco bloggers put together a "study" so bad they would not get it published anywhere. In real science, that's the end of the story. Six peer reviewed studies, from all over the world, versus zero peer reviewed studies.
JL
JL wrote, "I remember when these first studies came out and all the tobacco folks complained that they were only 6 months long, and that was obvious mistake, and how a 1 year study was required! This was one of the complaints about the Helens study."
Indeed it was. And the authors promised to publish a followup showing the wondrous results after a year. Oddly that never happened, despite emails to them asking them how it went.
Perhaps the results weren't "desirable" eh?
and JL wrote, "Now, the French have done the one year study, and now you claim that is not long enough! What desperation! If someone did a 2 year study that showed a drop, you would ask for a 3 year! If they did a 5 year, you'd want a 10 year, and so on."
Perhaps California could be used. Oddly there never was a six month study, or a one year study, or a two year, or five year, OR ten year study.
Perhaps the results weren't "desirable" eh?
and JL wrote, "My count is that there are now over 6 peer-reviewed studies showing a drop in heart attacks after a ban.
Care to name the 7 or more peer-reviewed studies that you claim here? Or are you just making it up?
And JL wrote, "There are zero peer-reviewed studies showing heart attacks stayed the same or went up.
(Although I know two pro-tabacco bloggers put together a "study" so bad they would not get it published anywhere."
Actually, the main reason the editors of the BMJ gave for not publishing the Kuneman/McFadden study was simply that despite the fact that it completely contradicted the findings of Helena while expanding the database by a factor of 1,000 times, "...we did not think it added enough, for general readers, to what is already known about smoking and health."
Perhaps the results weren't "desirable" eh?
The full story can be seen at the website of the American Council on Science and Health:
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/
n...news_detail.asp
Highly recommended reading.
And finally JL wrote, "In real science, that's the end of the story. Six peer reviewed studies, from all over the world, versus zero peer reviewed studies."
Actually JL, it's more like the beginning of a very interesting story that's yet to play out. The cherry-picking involved and the journalistic bias in this area will eventually prove to be the basis for quite an interesting story.
And I can guarantee you JL, the results will NOT be "desirable".
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://encyclopedia.smokersclub....ub.com/
130.html
Here are 7 peer-reviewed studies. These are not the article citations, just the locations of the studies:
Belena, Pueblo, Bowling Green, Piedmont (Italy), Southwest Irland, Monroe and Delaware Counties (Indiana) and New York State.
The following areas have studies for them that are not peer-reviewed, or I haven't research them enough to be sure of them:
Saskatoon (Canada), Greeley CO (USA), France (the study discussed here), and Scotland (two studies, but neither peer-reviewed that I could see).
JL
Cling to peer-review if you like, but many members of the scientific community have expressed alarm over the polticization of the process, as well as the massive conflict of accepting pharmaceutical advertising. A journal crammed with drug ads simply has no credibility.
Publication bias is well known, regarding negative studies and hot-button issues. How many other studies like Mr. McFadden's were summarily rejected simply for being impolitic? (I suspect you might hang onto your seven studies even if you found a hundred that contradicted them. True believers are like that.)
Such practices have led to the BMJ, Lancet, NEJM in particular, to get some nasty and embarrassing black eyes over the last decade alone. The editor of the JAMA was sacked for injecting the journal into the Clinton scandal. Remember Hwang's cloning paper? That was peer-reviewed.
Between the smoking studies, trans-fats, obesity, global warming, and everything else were supposed to be afraid of, science has rendered itself absolutely untrustworthy.
Basically, what you're saying is that your view is so widely wrong, that you have to throw out the entire peer review process.
Problems with peer review (and I'm sure there are some somewhere: there are problems with everything) will tend to get papers published when they should not be, not the other way around. Since there are 100s of peer reviewed journals, if you can even find one to publish your work, then you are published. It requires 100s of mistakes (one by each journal) to not publish something right, but only one mistake by one journal to publish something wrong.
So the two tobacco bloggers paper must be completely wrong, in order to fail peer review completely, so that no one , anywhere, would publish it.
JL
"Basically, what you're saying is that your view is so widely wrong, that you have to throw out the entire peer review process."
Oh, hey. A straw man.
Those would be your words, not mine.
"Problems with peer review (and I'm sure there are some somewhere: there are problems with everything) will tend to get papers published when they should not be, not the other way around."
Exactly. The rapid responses and letters on regard to the peer-reviewed studies on your list excoriated the authors for cherry-picking data, severly flawed methodology, and arriving at a pre-determined conclusion. So, I agree with you. These papers should not have been published, and would not have had they not been about a hot-button issue and in the best interests of their advertisers.
Medical journals favor anti-tobacco. This is not their place. Their job is to present the science, regardless of the conlusion.
The McFadden-Kuneman study challeges the conclusion that smoking bans result in a decrease in heart attacks. This is not acceptable in the current political climate.
Even without the anti-tobacco bias, a study which shows that smoking bans have no effect on heart attacks would be a null study, which is unlikely to get published for that very reason.
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi.../9/8/771?
ck=nck
If you would like to challege the soundness of the science, you should do so by reading and evaluating the study. Do not assume a study is flawed because it has not been published. It also unwise to assume a study is valid be cause it has been published.
Not one of the studies you list takes SHS exposure or smoking status into account. Every effect has a stimulus which must be observed to claim the effect. Since these studies attribute a decline in effect without confirming a decline in exposure to the stimulus, I must suspect another agenda on the part of both the authors and the journals.
JL wrote, "So the two tobacco bloggers paper must be completely wrong, in order to fail peer review completely, so that no one , anywhere, would publish it."
Actually JL, we've only submitted to three journals so far: all top of the line journals, with at least one of them having a very clear bias against such a study (Tobacco Control). The problem lies in the fact that there are hundreds of full time paid professionals competing for tens of millions of dollars in research grants who are concentrating on producing studies that will be favorable to the views of those granting organizations.
On the other side of the issue, the "tobacco bloggers" side, you have a very few volunteers working on their own time and expense and without any expectation at all of millions, thousands, or even hundreds or grant dollars coming their way. The funds to pay for stablefuls of grad students and secretaries to
You didn't supply links to your "7 peer reviewed studies" but I took the liberty of Googling the Monroe/Indiana one and found the following:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/...icles/
89247.php
It's interesting that the study claims to be the FIRST to examine the effect of bans on heart attacks in nonsmokers. I thought that was what Helena et al have been claiming for years. And yet here we have a study, published just four months ago claiming to be the first!
Now I may be being nit-picky here, but maybe I am not: the figure of 35,482 hospital admissions is given prominence in the report about this study. Oddly though they later reference "hospital admissions for AMIs among nonsmoking patients with no history of heart disease". Since the 35,000 number is the one being publicly used you would think that they looked at 35,000 people with heart attacks, right?
But did they? Or was just some smaller number used? If so, how MUCH smaller? And why don't the figures seem to be public without having to pay for them? If my sense of accusation is unjustly based, if indeed this study examined 35,000 heart attack cases, then I will be happy to apologise.
If on the other hand my suspicions are correct, and that the authors/media deliberately used a totally irrelevant 35,000 figure to inflate the importance of a study based on only a few dozen or few hundred cases... then I think I've got a problem accepting that the rest of the research funded by the "Indiana Tobacco Prevention And Cessation" people is what I would call neutral scientific research.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
www.TheTruthIsALie.com
A bit of Googling shows Monroe's population to be 115,000. The study claims it's "comparable" to Delaware Co. so we're talking a population base of about or less than 250,000. Figure about 30% of those are "adults" over age 40 or so who might be arguably in "heart attack range", about 80,000.
Did almost half the over 40ish adults in these counties have hospital admissions for heart attacks in a four year period? That seems unlikely... which leads me to think that the 35,000 figure is suspect.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
www.TheTruthIsALie.com
Ahhh.... and a little more research about 12 hours later actually DID turn up the full text of the Monroe study. One of the Antismoking luminaries evidently took it upon himself to violate copyright and distribute it to a group of his buddies and one of them sent it to me! LOL!
Well JL, it looks like I *won't* have to apologise.
There were NOT 35,000 heart attacks among smokers, nonsmokers, exsmokers, or presmokers (supposedly a term Big Tobacco uses for kids according to Antis' folklore) or anyone... the figure is for total hospital admissions.
So how many heart attacks were there in 22 months before and after the smoking ban?
A total of 22.
The study found statistical significance because 17 of those were pre-ban and only 5 were post-ban. If I had a big bag of a million black and white marbles and pulled out batches of 22 at a time I'd only pull out 17 and 5 about one time out of 25. Since statistical significance kicks in at 1 out of 20, the study's findings were indeed statistically significant.
If just two people had NOT had heart attacks in that 22 month period before the ban however, the findings probably would NOT have been significant. Maybe even if only ONE person had not... or if one person extra had had one after the ban took effect.
Were the findings significant? Yes. But is it misleading to present to the public information indicating that 35,000 cases were studied when really only 22 were? Yes again... it's the typical sort of "Lie" used by Antismokers: take a tiny pill of bitter truth, wrap it in a big wad of greasy hamburger and toss it to the media dogs who promptly swallow the whole thing and then excrete it out for public consumption.
Now how does that "published peer-reviewed" study compare with the "unpublished peer-reviewed" study that Dave K and I did?
Did we also have just 22 cases of heart attacks to build our conclusions on? (Actually, to be completely fair, the Monroe study also had a control group in Delaware County with 34 heart attacks... so the total of all heart attacks in the study was 56.)
Did we have 56? Less than 56? More than 56?
Hmm... our study, which the BMJ judged not to have results of general interest that "added anything to what is already known" actually DID have a few more than 56 heart attacks.
Our study had hmmm... yes... afew more more than 56... Our study compared public records covering 315,000 heart attacks.
Yes, JL, you read that right: three hundred and fifteen thousand heart attacks as compared to the 56 in your cited study... but because our findings showed that bans did NOT affect heart attack rates the BMJ stated, as their primary reason in rejecting our study, that they "did not think it added enough, for general readers, to what is already known about smoking and health"
And that, JL, is indeed how "real science" seems to be done nowadays.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://encyclopedia.smokersclub....ub.com/
130.html
Whoops... the 56 figure was only for nonsmokers. The total figure was actually 87. 87 compared to 315,000... somehow I think my general point retains its validity.
- MJM
But, dude, it's peer-reviewed.
22...35,000. So, they rounded up! Now you're just nitpicking.
(lol)
I was thinking about why you need to throw out peer review, after all this is a fundimental part of modern scientific practice. And has served us well for decades (if not centuries); not perfectly, but very well.
But it makes sense when I thought about it. People who believe things that are not true end up as conspiricy theorists. They have too, because as more an more people realize they are wrong, they need an explination for why all these people, and organizations, and governments, and companies, etc. are all saying they are wrong. Conspiricy theory provides that explanation, which they need.
But sometimes, it doesn't go far enough. What if you believe something so wrong, that even the biggest conspiricy can not explain all the groups that publish data showing it is wrong? In those cases, you've got to say that peer review itself (and the scientific method of which it is a key part), is wrong. It's a sort of logical extension of conspiricy theory, as an excuse as to why you can't get any scientific support for your ideas.
JL
Hi, guys.
Earlier mention was made about Doll, one of his employers, Monsanto, and astroturfing.
If I may add to the commentary at this late date:
http://pameladrew.newsvine.com/_...vine-coh-again-
'... The bigger questions are, why was an admitted biotech public relations professional rooted at Newsvine in the first place and why, after being required to delete an account linking to his GMO Africa Blog and Monsanto's PR site with one user name, did he create another account and do it again?
'This isn't just any run of the mill blogger who has a passion for genetically altered foods.
James Wachai is featured prominently and frequently at AgBio Views, the industry association newsletter along with notables from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a "think tank" that routinely provides "expert" opinions on Monsanto products and the Hoover Institution, another powerful think tank with heavyweights like Henry I. Miller whose bio from CEI is here. ...'
'... Even better than that, Wachai's views are featured at Monsanto's Biotech Knowledge Center . Apparently Monsanto has a high opinion of his views as well. The link is directly to Monsanto, quoting Wachai and offering another link to what appears to be yet another, user supplied content site, where the covert PR is being promoted. Is there any way the corporate executives could be unaware of the scope of his information seeding? ...'
'... These groups are free to promote any view they choose but what does it say about their ethics that plants are mixed among users to promote a business agenda? What does it say about the Monsanto strategy that free sites like ours and Yahoo! Answers have professional spin masters supplying corporate PR as opposed to paying to advertise?
'It is no secret to many here that my personal view of the fee based seeds created by Monsanto and the other petrochemical companies to withstand lethal doses of toxic herbicides are not only dangerous to human health and the environment but a violation of individual freedom as American consumers who have been denied the right to know what we're eating and choose whether to consume them.
'If we are really a free market economy then businesses compete for customers by promoting the benefits of their products and winning consumers endorsements. That is not the case with biotech; through creative legislative loopholes American consumers have been denied the right to choose.
'Now we are left in a situation where the bulk of America's subsidized crops are biotech, gmo varieties. A quick look at the Environmental Working Group database shows us that nearly half of the subsidies go to the Congressional Districts with Members of Congress on the Agriculture Committee. ...'
'... Monsanto has the vast majority of that seed market, which means as taxpayers we are all paying to grow these gmo varieties. ...'
'... Taxpayers picking up the tab to artificially lower the price of these crops and the benefit is going straight to Monsanto's bottom line. CNBC reported in April of this year...
'Monsanto surged to a record high - Monsanto Co [MON 93.54 2.75 (+3.03%) ] after the seed company posted a higher-than-expected second-quarter profit. The results were driven by record revenues that included strong sales of its genetically modified corn and other seeds. Corn demand has increased as ethanol production has ramped up....
'The bottom line showed net income for the second quarter totaling $543 million, compared with $440 million a year ago. Monsanto said it recorded record net sales of $2.6 billion for the second quarter, up 19 percent over the same period in 2006. A
'Why is a company with $2.6 billion in quarterly sales planting PR material at free user supplied content sites and why when they've been caught once would they do it again? Is this a lone case of covert operations and dirty PR tricks or is there a corporate culture that accepts any strategy to sway public opinion is justified in pursuit of profit?
'There's little question my view of the ethics involved reflect an attitude that many corporate heavyweights in America have and that is the rules don't apply to them. That attitude is reflected in the policies of a Congress so beholden to corporate interests that our support goes to the most powerful corporate interests at the expense of the public. ...'
http://www.overlandexpress.org/
1...183_wilson.html
'... To combat the problem of activist letters in newspapers, Irvine urged PR folk to engage more people to write letters. “If there are three letters in there in one week saying, ‘GM [foods] are good’, the politicians think, ‘hey, that’s pretty neat’.” Costello’s people, sitting up the back, said nothing. They looked bored.
'It’s hard for companies, said Irvine, because activists recruit people like “climate-warming, tree-hugging, salmon-loving, gay-woman-loving maybe” geneticist Dr David Suzuki. (Suzuki has said, “Any politician or scientist who assures you that GM products are safe is either very stupid or lying.”) What would Dr Suzuki know, asked Irvine – Suzuki studied fruit flies! A PR for the GM crop industry, Irvine told us that millions of people have consumed GM products for years “without a sniffle!”.
'There are in fact many documented cases of the adverse effects of consuming GM products. The most recent is the CSIRO pea case in Australia, and the most serious is the Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome (EMS) case, in which around 5000 people across North America experienced a previously unknown disease, causing lifetime paralysis and fifty deaths. Showa Denko conceded a GM component of its product was responsible, and paid $1.2 billion in compensation.
'But agribusiness and biotech spin doctors were nodding. Activists have time and resources to do things that corporates don’t, said one. Irvine agreed. “The smaller groups often get a tremendous amount of power and influence that they don’t deserve . . . Quite frankly, business doesn’t have the resources and capability that activists do.” ...'
'... To this, the PRIA’s David Hawkins said, “The challenge, I think, from what Ross is saying, is . . . we need to work out how we can break the law to do these things.” (The Port of Melbourne Corporation is obliged under several State and Commonwealth Acts to assess environmental impact.)
To a complaint that chemical companies are legally obliged to consult with community, Irvine said: “This is a process that activists have put in place over years! What they’ve gradually done to the State!”
' “What Ross is saying,” added Hawkins, “is that we need to be activists too, expand our networks to actually change the legislation.”
' Quoting Margaret Thatcher, George W. Bush, Fox News, Rand and the IPA, Irvine warned participants of “a very anti-business ethic going through society, I think it’s going through the school system a whole bunch, too. I find that a little bit frightening, I think it’s at the university level . . . boy, this sounds pretty bizarre and paranoid but I think there’s a left-wing sort of thing.”
' This claim, hammered daily in newspapers around Australia, can be traced to IPA campaigns and those of US neocon think-tanks. “The wild claims of far-right groups like the IPA drag the spectrum of political debate to the right,” says Monash University economist Tim Thornton. “What was once a moderate position is now depicted as ultra leftist, while extremist propaganda seems reasonable, particularly when it’s dressed up as fact.” Referring to the ideology behind the Draft Charities Bill, imported wholesale from the US, he says: “Once these ideas were at the edge of sanity, now they’re at the edge of policy.”
' At the end of Irvine’s seminar, we split into groups for exercises. One was challenged to “assume the position of moral leadership”, a lesson from Irvine’s work with the biotech (GM crop) industry. When the GM crop industry faced health, environmental, economic, legal and social challenges, it mounted a higher moral ground campaign: GM crops will save third world children from malnutrition and starvation. The stratagem is to promote not with facts, said Irvine, but values. This, he claimed, is what activists do, and what industry must do better. “There are some real immoral people on the anti-biotech side,” he said. “Activists say, ‘let the kids starve’. That, to me, is totally immoral and amoral and everything. That, I’m sorry, that just brings out, I get really . . .” he inhaled and shook his head.
' Another group was charged with finding ways to discredit activists. “Discredit the ideology and defeat the terrorist,” advised Irvine. The group came up with: “Call them suicide bombers . . . make them all look like terrorists . . . tree-hugging, dope-smoking, bloody university graduate, anti-progress . . .” and “Spot the flake. Find someone who would represent the enemy but clearly doesn’t know what the issue is . . . find a 16-year-old” and “distract the activist with side issues . . . and make enemies within the enemy camp so they spend all their time fighting and that helps to deepen their disorganisation.”
(Con't)
' Our group was charged with ‘empowering others’ to support a cause. The cause was the Port of Melbourne channel-deepening. Once we had determined who we will ‘empower’ (unions, farmers’ groups, retailers), the PRIA’s David Hawkins suggested marginalising the environmental argument. This could be done with what Bush flacks call ‘the fire hose method’ – bombarding the media with issues, information and press conferences so they don’t have the resources to interview alternative sources.
' To the suggestion that the case for channel-deepening should be the voice of reason, Hawkins replied, “No, no, let’s be the voice of unreason. Let’s call them fruitcakes. Let’s call them nut – nutters. You know, let’s say they’re . . .”
' “Environmental radicals,” suggested Darebin’s Shannon Walker.
' “Exactly. You know . . . say they represent 0.1 per cent but they dominate, you know, let’s absolutely go for them.”
' Our group discussed astroturfing. Named after a synthetic lawn, astroturfing is the creation of bogus community groups or independent authorities who endorse industry practice, recruit lesser-informed citizens, confuse the debate and make the real community groups appear extreme. The Guardian uncovered one case in which one of Monsanto’s public relations companies, Bivings Woodell, fabricated science ‘experts’ and online ‘scientific communities’ who successfully discredited genuine peer-reviewed science reports about the dangers of GM crops. Protest movements were also invented, including one at Johannesburg’s World Summit on Sustainable Development, widely reported as a demonstration by ‘third world’ farmers chanting “I don’t need white NGOs to speak for me”.
' The University of Wollongong’s Professor Sharon Beder says ‘astroturf’ of this kind is rapidly propagating in Australia. “You need to know any particular issue very well to be able to distinguish the astroturf from the genuine grassroots groups,” she says. “For example, in mental health there are several front groups funded by pharmaceutical companies but they have a great deal of public credibility. Unless you know the issue well, you wouldn’t be able to pick them.” Those alleged by academics to be front groups include the Forest Protection Society (funded by the logging industry), Green Fleet, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and Mothers Against Pollution, which campaigns against milk bottles and is funded by the Association of Liquid Paperboard Carton Manufacturers.
' To arm the workshop’s pro-channel-deepening astroturf, it was suggested that research and statistics could be featured on its website. The PRIA’s David Hawkins responded:
'No, that’s – you don’t need the research at all . . . you say, ‘50 per cent of the workforce will go if this doesn’t happen’ . . . You just say ‘we believe’ – we don’t know if it’s true or not – but we say ‘we believe’ . . . if they say, ‘can we have a look at your research?’ then we just run. We don’t answer, we just close down the website and open another.
'In our group was Bernadette Basell, senior partner of KPPR, which represents the mobile phone industry. She didn’t share Hawkins’ approach, saying later that “misrepresentation and deception, such as astroturfing, is deplored by most in the public relations industry. Community groups usually have genuine concerns that need to be addressed.”
' I later learned that Basell then alerted Hawkins to the possible motivations behind my line of questioning. Later still, Hawkins sent me an email to clarify what he’d said at the workshop. “It is totally unacceptable and unethical for any PR practitioner to pretend to represent another organisation that they do not represent or to fabricate a community group or identity,” he wrote.
' His public relations company, Socom, a firm with mostly Labor and some Liberal government clients across Australia, has set up community groups, but there’s no evidence to suggest these are astroturf. It’s acceptable, Hawkins wrote, for PR firms “to assist members of a community set up a group”.
'Yet the PRIA (of which Hawkins is Victorian director) has been accused on Crikey.com of being “a secretive organisation” with “questionable” political links. “The Institute purports to be a professional body,” wrote one practitioner. “They are ill-equipped for the task. Individual members are themselves open to claims of dubious ethical behaviour.”
'Shannon Walker summed up the PRIA workshop as “weird”, saying he didn’t learn anything he could use. Hawkins said “If Ross was to return to Australia I would definitely consider running another workshop”. Asked why he partook in the workshop, Costello’s adviser, David Gazard, declined to comment.
'But government employees – be they federal or local – have no place in a forum that promotes ways to stop citizens participating in the democratic process, says economist Clive Hamilton. Hamilton heads the Australia Institute, a public policy research body funded by grants from philanthropic trusts and staffed by economists. (The Institute claims to be neither left nor right wing.) Given an audio recording of the workshop, Hamilton responded, “Why a government agency would attend a seminar like this is beyond comprehension. These agencies are owned by the public, yet by attending seminars to learn how to beat citizens’ groups by means fair or foul they are turning on their owners. Only an organisation that has wholly alienated itself from the public would even consider attending an event like this.” ...'
http://digg.com/software/
Microso...ry_on_ODF_OOXML
'... . I see the agribusiness (Monsanto et al) using Wikipedia nowadays and I welcome this new form of astroturfing because they will never win this battle. I have followed them for awhile, they used to fund astroturfing groups and sue people vie underhanded means to silence freedom of speech and information. Wikipedia keeps them in check. They are taking the bait, thinking they can monopolize information in this new medium but they are just giving Wikipedia more attention, which is exactly what they don't want. Wikipedia stands for truth, they don't like the truth. I have RSS feeds for wikipedia entries, monitoring the industry. As soon as they spew forth their propaganda, my RSS alerts alert me and I make sure to edit it to tame it down, put in rebuttals with links and references. They spend millions to astroturf on Wikipedia and it takes me 5 minutes to neutralize their agenda.
'I think we should all welcome companies giving credence to Wikipedia, just make sure we keep them in check. ...'
(My comment - I'm guessing this is the sort of claimed too much time and power possessed by activists complained of by industry PR reps...)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/
index...e=Bivings_Group
'The Bivings Group is a PR firm whose clients include Monsanto, a company with a long history of harmful practices impacting the environment and human health.[1][2] [3]. They seem to specialize in the creation of fake grassroots Astroturf supporters for their clients.
An article on the Bivings web site, titled "Viral Marketing: How to Infect the World," originally recommended covert and deceptive Internet activity, "there are some campaigns where it would be undesirable or even disastrous to let the audience know that your organisation is directly involved... it simply is not an intelligent PR move. In cases such as this, it is important to first 'listen' to what is being said online... Once you are plugged into this world, it is possible to make postings to these outlets that present your position as an uninvolved third party... Perhaps the greatest advantage of viral marketing is that your message is placed into a context where it is more likely to be considered seriously.... Sometimes, we win awards. Sometimes only the client knows the precise role we played." After this message was criticized publicly, Bivings removed the offending passages, placing a note at the bottom of the article that states, "Recently edited for clarification." ...'
'In May 14, 2002, Guardian journalist George Monbiot reported on "invisible persuasion" techniques used by Bivings that included the creation of fictional individuals on the Internet. "Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the Internet," he wrote. ... Detective work by the campaigner Jonathan Matthews and the freelance journalist Andy Rowell shows how a PR firm contracted to the biotech company Monsanto appears to have played a crucial but invisible role in shaping scientific discourse."
'Bivings apparently played a behind-the-scenes role in persuading Nature magazine to retract a scientific paper which it had published, claiming that native maize in Mexico had been contaminated by genetically modified pollen.
(Con't)
' "On the day the paper was published, messages started to appear on a biotechnology listserver used by more than 3,000 scientists, called AgBioWorld," Monbiot wrote. The first came from a correspondent named 'Mary Murphy.' Chapela is on the board of directors of the Pesticide Action Network, and therefore, she claimed, 'not exactly what you'd call an unbiased writer.' Her posting was followed by a message from an 'Andura Smetacek,' claiming, falsely, that Chapela's paper had not been peer-reviewed, that he was 'first and foremost an activist' and that the research had been published in collusion with environmentalists. ... The messages from Murphy and Smetacek stimulated hundreds of others, some of which repeated or embellished the accusations they had made. Senior biotechnologists called for Chapela to be sacked from Berkeley. AgBioWorld launched a petition pointing to the paper's 'fundamental flaws.' ... The pressure on Nature was so severe that its editor did something unparalleled in its 133-year history: last month he published, alongside two papers challenging Quist and Chapela's, a retraction in which he wrote that their research should never have been published." However, sleuthing by Monbiot and others shows that "Mary Murphy" and "Andura Smetacek" are apparently pseudonyms used by Bivings employees (Update: "Mary Murphy has subsequently been shown to be an e-mail front for Monsanto's PR company, Bivings, while the postings of Andura Smetacek have been traced back directly to Monsanto in St Louis" [5]). For more on the Monsanto connection see [6].
'[edit]Bivings and the Republican Party
Bivings has received $79,811 in 2004 [7] from the Republican National Committee, and designed their GOP Teamleader website.[8]
'Bivings defends their role in creating fake letters to the editor via GOP Team Leader. Regarding the consternation one letter writing campaign caused they gloat "The editors of these papers, which include The Boston Globe, The Cincinnati Post, and The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, are crying foul - they feel that they were duped. All major publications have policies against publishing form letters, but these managed to slip through, as they had the look and feel of genuine grassroots responses." [9] ...'
(My comment - what do you want to bet that the people we've seen calling US - smokers, at 1/5th to 1/4 of the general adult population, and however many increasingly outraged non-smokers - astroturf, are PR/industry themselves?
Who else would assume that the population had no inclination or right to defend themselves/each other against giant, toxic industry in profitable coalition against the public being divested of human rights and divvied up globally as 'human resources' for industry use and abuse?
Although an amazing number of people seem to swallow this, how many of these are 'real'?
Big GM Pharma has sunk/is sinking billions of dollars specifically into GM tobacco 'technology' - as well as PR/'grass-roots' campaigns taking advantage of the long-standing asbestos/chemical/mining-radon, etc. transference of occupational, environmental and product-related illness to victim blame, as supported by industry scientists such as Doll - in the interests of gaining a global monopoly on multitudinous tobacco (and other such) herbal/medicinal/nutritional benefits.
http://ngin.tripod.com/deceit_index.html
'Monsanto's
World Wide Web of Deceit
Index
' "Think of the internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does, but somebody is going to get killed"
'The following articles detail a Monsanto dirty tricks campaign waged against the company's scientific and environmental critics.
'In one instance, Monsanto and its PR proxies ran a covert campaign of character assassination against two University of California, Berkeley scientists after they published research in the science journal Nature demonstrating GM contamination of Mexican maize. The campaign culminated in the journal retracting the research even though a majority of the journal's own peer reviewers did not support such a retraction.
'In another instance, Monsanto's poison pen campaign triggered a libel case that reached the High Court in London. The campaign of smears, involving cyberattacks posted on messageboards, listservs and front websites, it emerges, involved the direct participation not only of Monsanto's Washington based PR firm - The Bivings Group - but of Monsanto itself. ...'
My comment - check out the site to view the lengths to which such corporate profiteers will go to eliminate opposition, competition, criticism - and note the familiarity of the PR and other tactics involved.
The first supplied is:
http://ngin.tripod.com/deceit07.html
Monsanto's
World Wide Web of Deceit
excerpt from "The Covert Biotech War"
The battle to put a corporate GM padlock on our foodchain is being fought on the net
George Monbiot, Tuesday 19 Nov, 2002, The Guardian
Six months ago, this column revealed that a fake citizen called Mary Murphy had been bombarding internet listservers with messages denouncing the scientists and environmentalists who were critical of GM crops. The computer from which some of these messages were sent belongs to a public relations company called Bivings, which works for Monsanto. The boss of Bivings wrote to the Guardian, fiercely denying that his company had been running covert campaigns. His head of online PR, however, admitted to the BBC's Newsnight that one of the messages came from someone "working for Bivings" or "clients using our services". But Bivings denies any knowledge of the use of its computer for such a campaign.
This admission prompted the researcher Jonathan Matthews, who first uncovered the story, to take another look at some of the emails which had attracted his attention. He had become particularly interested in a series of vituperative messages sent to the most prominent biotech listservers on the net, by someone called Andura Smetacek. Smetacek first began writing in 2000. She or he repeatedly accused the critics of GM of terrorism. When one of her letters, asserting that Greenpeace was deliberately spreading unfounded fears about GM foods in order to further its own financial interests, was reprinted in the Glasgow Herald, Greenpeace successfully sued the paper for libel.
Smetacek claimed, in different messages, first to live in London, then in New York. Jonathan Matthews checked every available public record and found that no person of that name appeared to exist in either city. But last month his techie friends discovered something interesting. Three of these messages, including the first one Smetacek sent, arrived with the internet protocol address 199.89.234.124. This is the address assigned to the server gatekeeper2.monsanto.com. It belongs to the Monsanto corporation.
In 1999, after the company nearly collapsed as a result of its disastrous attempt to thrust GM food into the European market, Monsanto's communications director, Philip Angell, explained to the Wall Street Journal: "Maybe we weren't aggressive enough... When you fight a forest fire, sometimes you have to light another fire." The company identified the internet as the medium which had helped protest to "mushroom".
At the end of last year, Jay Byrne, formerly the company's director of internet outreach, explained to a number of other firms the tactics he had used at Monsanto. He showed how, before he got to work, the top GM sites listed by an internet search engine were all critical of the technology. Following his intervention, the top sites were all supportive ones (four of them established by Monsanto's PR firm Bivings). He told them to "think of the internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does, but somebody is going to get killed".
While he was working for Monsanto, Byrne told the internet newsletter Wow that he "spends his time and effort participating" in web discussions about biotech. He singled out the site AgBioWorld, where he "ensures his company gets proper play". AgBioWorld is the site on which Smetacek launched her campaign. ...'
with a link there supplied for the full article.
Of potential interest - a remarkably sense-free derogatory 'comment' was recently left on Dr. Siegel's site by someone self-identified as 'Wow'.
Was this possibly some child corrupted by Monsanto propaganda and self-interestedly dismissive attitudes toward those unwillingly sacrificed to Monsanto corporate profit, and identifying with this newsletter?
And as giant, consolidating global industry increases control over our personal decisions, and the quality of products, the environment and our lives, lucrative new markets in health-care open up to replace declining manufacturing, etc. in a world of increasing have-nots as wages and small business both shrivel.
The only good job remaining for most - that so many quit smoking over the past half-century, as a century or more is apparently being claimed as latency for 'smoking-related diseases' (also instantly produced by 2nd-hand smoke when required) claimed responsible for virtual epidemics (already identified as due to asbestos and other causes) expected to worsen until the 20s, 30s or later...
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008...in-health-care/
'InBev’s bid to buy Anheuser Busch is tugging at the heartstrings of St. Louis, the brewer’s home town.
'But perhaps its time for the town to reconsider its Budweiser-centric self image, local business columnist Mary Jo Feldstein writes in this morning’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
'With about 6,000 employees in the St. Louis area, A-B doesn’t even make the top 10 list of largest local employers. But three hospital networks do. BJC Healthcare, the area’s biggest employer, has more than 23,500 people on staff.
'The big pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts is also in the area, as is the managed care company Centene. Feldstein thinks Express Scripts might do well to find a “marketing mascot” to win over local hearts. “Drugs MacKenzie, perhaps?” she asks.
'Biotech agricultural giant Monsanto may no longer be a health-care company since the wheeling and dealing that sent its G.D. Searle pharma unit to Pfizer via Pharmacia. But Monsanto’s still close kin in terms of research and remains based in town. The company has seen fast growth during recent years, while things at A-B have been pretty flat.
'The shift from old-line industries to health care is happening in many corners of the country — witness Pittsburgh and Detroit, to name a couple we’ve written about before. But somehow, health-care jobs don’t seem to captivate the popular imagination like, say, Clydesdales and beer.
' “St. Louisians aren’t very interested in companies with quadrupling stock prices, fast-rising revenue or massive increases in profit,” Feldstein writes. “We prefer those with Super Bowl commercials.” '
My comment - or perhaps they prefer not to have such a large and snowballing percentage of their population sick/dying and therefore requiring healthcare often from those producing their own business, apart from the fast-rising revenue and massive increases in profits also derived at their expense and to their detriment...
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlou.../05/
story5.html
'Karen Seibert and Dan Getman have survived several corporate transitions in the last decade. Now they get to lead one.
'Seibert, 44, was named to head Pfizer Inc.'s research in St. Louis April 29, the day Pfizer unveiled its plan to consolidate its worldwide research operations, following its acquisition of Pharmacia.
'She is the first of four key executives Pfizer named to its operations here and will oversee Pfizer discovery research in two areas: heart disease and inflammation, including arthritis.
'Seibert will be working in concert with Getman, 48, who said he learned several weeks ago he would be the St. Louis site director for Pfizer. Seibert will be reporting directly to Pfizer's worldwide research center in New London, Conn., as will leaders of three other areas who will be named within weeks, Getman said.
'The other three St. Louis leaders will oversee drug safety -- a field known as pharmacokinetics, which determines how the body absorbs drugs -- and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
' "My job is to bring that team together to concentrate on the best drug candidates," said Getman, who joined Monsanto in 1982.
' "I've stayed at this location since I signed on. The sign out front has changed a few times," said Seibert, who joined Monsanto in 1991 after post-doctoral work at Washington University.
'Both Seibert and Getman remained with the company through its combination with Pharmacia in 2000 and its subsequent $57 billion buyout by Pfizer, completed April 16. Seibert previously had managed scientists here who had developed profitable drugs including Celebrex, used to treat arthritis, and Inspra, a drug that has had success for people with hypertension.
"My role will be to dive down into the (research) portfolio and feed the pipeline" at Pfizer, Seibert said.
'She said that the company has promising research on drugs to treat both rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.
'Seibert is a protégé of Dr. Philip Needleman, known as the father of Celebrex, who was a chief scientific officer with Monsanto. He became chief scientific officer and senior vice president of Pharmacia Corp., and was the company's highest-ranking officer in St. Louis. Needleman and other Pharmacia executives resigned as Pfizer completed its take over of Pharmacia.
'Needleman said Seibert and Getman played important roles at Pharmacia in taking pharmaceutical research and shepherding that work into candidates for new drugs that will treat human diseases.
'They both worked on Celebrex and are positioned to move promising drugs down the clinical path to approval, Needleman said.
' "The sad news is research in Chicago and Skokie will not go forward," he said. Research at those sites was critical to Monsanto and Pharmacia, according to Needleman. "This is a bittersweet announcement for those who stayed" with Pfizer.
'St. Louis had roughly 1,300 Pharmacia employees spread across five locations prior to the combination with Pfizer. The locations are a 210-acre research campus in Chesterfield, space leased from Monsanto in Creve Coeur, space in the Maryville Centre office complex in west St. Louis County, a building within the Washington University medical complex and a building within Solutia Inc.'s Queeny plant in south St. Louis.
'Mike Montague, a Pfizer spokesman in St. Louis, said the company is shifting assignments across Pfizer's global network. Two research areas leaving St. Louis are cancer and ophthalmology. Pfizer has not said which of its five other research sites will take over that work. Pfizer also said it will end its chemical manufacturing at the Queeny plant.
' Pfizer, based in New York, is consolidating 25 research sites to eliminate duplication and focus company research on its strongest areas "so our strengths are exploited," Montague said.
' Pfizer will be continuing its partnership with Washington University's School of Medicine -- a formal, collaborative agreement that started with Monsanto in 1983, Getman and Seibert said.
' "I'm delighted it's going to continue," said Dr. William Peck, dean of the Washington University School of Medicine.
'The arrangement provides the university with about $5 million a year, Peck said, and other research institutions and Congress have used the arrangement as a model for corporate funding of university research. '
My comment - like a ubiquitous octopus (Pfizer purchased thereafter by Johnson and Johnson - i.e. anti-org. RWJB, prospective global health ruler) spreading everywhere, with an anti-smoking, victim/public-blame-and-control message...
And below, where even wind-blown GM contamination of cropland - in some cases destroying hard-earned organic status - results in the victim being sued by Monsanto...
http://www.mindfully.org/Pestici...-
Glyphosate.htm
'... If you're still not convinced that Roundup is a highly toxic and persistent pesticide, read on, while at the same time remembering the other contributions that Monsanto has made to society such as:
'Saccharin, Astroturf, agent orange, dioxin, sulphuric acid, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), plastics and synthetic fabrics, research on uranium for the Manhattan Project that led to the construction of nuclear bombs, styrene monomer, an endless line of pesticides and herbicides (Roundup), rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone that makes cows ill), genetically engineered crops (corn, potatoes, tomatoes, soy beans, cotton), and it's most significant product to date; Lies, Factual Distortions and Omissions. Here's one of the distortions that Monsanto had on its website a while back. "Sustainability - the idea that the resources and people of this world are finite. That for any business decision we make, we must consider the effect it will have on us and our children. That the products we make must not use up all of a natural resource, or even worse, contaminate what is left behind."
'Take a look at what Monsanto is doing to Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser. And he's far from being the sole recipient of Monsanto's vengeful wrath. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of farmers around the world are being sued after Monsanto's police "find" their patented crops on the farmers' lands without paying for use of the technology. Also see the Monsanto Technology Agreement, in which farmers must sign away all rights in order to sow Monsanto seed ...'
My comment - this typifies what Doll and his ilk promoted through victim - most often smoking - blame, in the name of 'health' and 'science' - and the toxic industries which literally get away withh murder behind the smokescreen.
Mention was previously made by a poster about conspiracy theorists, in too many cases a term used to convince the public to ignore proven character, tendencies, history, evidence, etc. and operate on a blind belief system involving PR whatever various ruthless interests choose to disseminate...
The following is, to say the least, interesting;
http://phsj.org/files/Pharmaceut...%
20Industry.ppt
Of especial note from below:
'... FDA being sued for allowing genetically-engineered foods on the market without adequate safety review
FDA reviewer worked for Monsanto before and after his FDA tenure
Majority of Americans unaware GM foods already widely marketed ...'
In further general Big Pharma example:
'... Sales revenues tripled over last decade
Prices increased 150% (verses 50% CPI
Spending up 17% from 2000 top 2001
Economics
Average CEO compensation = $20 million (199
Pharmaceutical Manufacturer’s Association and Medical Device Manufacturer’s Association are powerful lobbies
Drug Industry Lobbying
$38 million donated to Congressional campaigns in the 1990s
$84 million in 2000 election (2/3 to Republicans)
GW Bush received $456,000 during his 2000 election campaign
Drug Industry Lobbying
623 lobbyists for 535 members of Congress
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) - $169,000 in 2000 - #1
John Ashcroft (prev. R-MO, now Atty. Gen’l) - $50,000 in 2000
Front groups - e.g., Citizens for Better Medicare ($65 million ad campaign to defeat a Medicare prescription drug plan)
Drug Costs
U.S. highest in the world
54% > Europe
34% to 80% > Canada (drug companies still among the most profitable in Canada)
Cross border pharmacy visits increasingly common
the fastest growing component of the $1.3 trillion US health care bill
Drug Costs
U.S. only large industrialized country not regulating drug prices AND the only major economic power that allows an inventor to patent a medicine (as opposed to the methods and processes used to produce it)
Drug Pricing Policies and Regulations
Product Pricing Control
France, Italy, Spain
Reference Pricing
Germany, Netherlands
Profit Control
U.K.
No control
U.S. ...
Drugs: Who Pays?
55% out-of-pocket
25% private insurance
17% medicaid
3% Other (VA, Workman’s Comp, IHS, etc..) ...
1991 PHRMA study (flawed): up to $800 million per drug
Other estimate: $300 – 600 million per new drug
2000 Tufts/Public Citizen Reports: $110 million
55% of the research that led to the discovery and development of the top 5 selling drugs of 1995 paid for by the federal government ...
Generics - Litigation
Under Hatch-Waxman Law of 1984, lawsuits brought by pharmaceutical companies against generic manufacturers, whether frivolous or not, can delay FDA approval of generic drug by 30 months
73% of cases won by brand name companies ...
Lobbying
1998: agribusiness spent $119.3 million lobbying Congress
1998: environmental groups spent $4.7 million on all issues combined
Active lobbying (new laws, not enforce existing laws or fund existing programs)
“Lobbying for lethargy” (maintain status quo)
Lobbying
All industry = $1.2 billion/yr (not including campaign contributions and soft money)
All single issue ideological groups combined (e.g., pro-choice, anti-abortion, feminist and consumer organizations, senior citizens, etc.) = $76.2 million
Pharmaceutical Company Advertising
$15 billion/year in 2000
over $6 billion - advertising and marketing
over $7 billion - sales reps’ salaries
up to $15,000/U.S. physician
50,000 salespersons: 1/10 prescribing physicians
Pharmaceutical Company Advertising – Drug Samples
$8 billion/year in samples (10-20% of office visits)
Only ½ of samples go to patients
Providers dispense samples at 10% - 20% of visits
60% of pharm reps self-medicate ...
Truthfulness in Drug Ads: Data
57% little of no educational value
40% not balanced
33% misleading headline
30% incorrectly called drug the “agent of choice”
44% could lead to improper prescribing
Truthfulness in Drug Ads
500 FDA violations from 1997-mid-2001
- includes 90 DTC ads
Increased FDA oversight and enforcement needed
Untruthfulness in Drug Ads: Reasons
Advertisement income
Business branch handles ads
Oversight by journals would be prohibitively expensive
Truthfulness in Drug Ads
Higher percentage of ads misleading in Third World
Most agents available OTC
Doctors are influenced
Prescribing patterns (e.g., Cipro, Calcium Channel Blockers)
1998: Trovan most promoted drug in US; sales most ever for an antibiotic in one year; use since limited by FDA due to liver toxicity
Doctors are Influenced
Formulary Requests
(JAMA 1994;271:684-9)
Met with drug rep – 3.4X more likely to request company’s drug
Accepted money to attend symposia – 7.9X
Accepted money to speak at symposia – 3.9X
Accepted money to perform company-sponsored research – 9.5X
Dubious Advertising Tactics
Sponsored symposia and publications
“Buying” ghost-written editorials
Non-peer-reviewed papers in “throwaway” journals
>100 for-profit medical communication companies
Dubious Advertising Tactics
Disorders Made to Order:
GAD, Social Anxiety Disorder, ADHD, etc.
Sales of antipsychotics quadrupled from 1998-2002
Time-Concepts, Inc. – links doctors with drug reps for a fee
Direct to Consumer Advertising
Began in 1980, briefly banned 1983-85
Expenditures:
$155 million—1985
$356 million--1995
$1 billion--1998
$2.8 billion--2000
Direct to Consumer Advertising
US and New Zealand only countries to allow prime time TV advertising
1989 - one drug achieved >10% public recognition
1995 - 13 of the 17 most-heavily marketed
2000 – Schering-Plough spent more to market Claritin than Coca-Cola Enterprises and Anheuser Busch spent to market their products ...
Direct to Consumer Advertising
Pfizer fined $6 million for TV ads extolling benefits of Cipro over cheaper generic drugs (or no drugs) for childhood ear infections
In Spanish medical journals, nearly half of promotional drug ad statements not supported by cited reference
Bush administration has extended investigation period → more ineffective oversight ...
Direct to Consumer Advertising of Genetic Tests
Overstate the value of genetic tests for clinical care
May provide misinformation
Exaggerate consumers’ risks
Exploit public’s fears/worries
Endorse a deterministic relationship between genes and disease
Reinforce associations between diseases and ethnic groups ...
Seeding Trials
Sponsored by sales and marketing dept., rather than research division
“Investigators” chosen not for their expertise, but because they prescribe competitor’s drug
Study design poor
Seeding Trials
Up to 25% of patients enrolled in clinical trials
Disproportionate amount paid for “investigator’s” work (writing a prescription)
Physicians more favorable towards than patients ...
Issues in Drug Company Research
60% of industry-sponsored trials are contracted out to for-profit research firms, which in turn may contract with for-profit NIRBs for ethical review.
Industry ethics consultants – watchdogs or showdogs
Erosion of medical ethics
Issues in Drug Company Research
Symposia
Many are drug-company sponsored
More likely to have a run-in period (eliminates non-compliers, adverse reactors)
Favorable outcomes more likely
Misleading titles
Brand names
Less peer review
Promote unapproved uses ...
...
Poor patient education
Cost
M.D. awareness poor
Doctors more likely to under- than overestimate
Dosing frequency
Social barriers, public stigmatization
...
Adverse Drug Events
(Harvard Medical Practice Study)
6.5 ADEs/100 admissions
1% fatal (est. 140,000 deaths/yr. in U.S.)
12% life-threatening
30% serious
57% insignificant
28% preventable
42% life-threatening and serious reactions
...
Adverse Drug Events
4th leading cause of death (?)
Increased length of stay
Increased risk of death
Increased costs
$2,262 - $4,685 per inpatient event
Alternative Medicine
expenditures = $27 billion out of pocket in 1997
$17.8 billion on supplements in 2001
12% use herbs in one year (vs. 2.5% in 1990)
$5.1 billion in out-of-pocket payments
46% of patients use an unconventional therapy
...
My comment - when farm pollution is (typically deceptively unspecified, whether intended to be so or not) spoken of, it's factory farm - replacing sustainable family farms with giant industry - pollution meant.
Derisive visions of green fields with healthy grazing animals are conjured in such cases by the uninformed...
...
Factory Farming
Factory farms have replaced industrial factories as the # 1 polluters of American waterways
1.4 billion tons animal waste generated/yr
130 x human waste
Factory Farming
Cattle manure 1.2 billion tons
Pig manure 116 million tons
Chicken droppings 14 million tons
Factory Farm Waste
Overall number of hog farms down from 600,000 to 157,000 over the last 15yrs, while # of factory hog farms up 75%
1 hog farm in NC generates as much sewage annualy as all of Manhattan
Factory Farm Waste
Most untreated
Ferments in open pools
Seeps into local water supply, estuaries
Kills fish
Causes human infections - e.g., Pfisteria pescii, Chesapeake Bay
Creates unbearable stench
Widely disseminated by floods/hurricanes
Agricultural Antibiotic Use
Agriculture accounts for 70% of U.S. antibiotic use
Use up 50% over the last 15 years
Almost 8 billion animals per year “treated” to “promote growth”
Larger animals, fewer infections in herd
Consequences of Agricultural Antibiotic Use
Campylobacter fluoroquinolone resistance
VREF (poss. due to avoparcin use in chickens)
Antibiotic Resistant Pathogens
CDC: “Antibiotic use in food animals is the dominant source of antibiotic resistance among food-borne pathogens.”
$4billion/yr to treat antibiotic-resistant infections in humans
Alternatives to Agricultural Antibiotic Use
Decrease overcrowding
Better diet/sanitation/living conditions
Control heat stress
Vaccination
Increased use of bacterial cultures and specific antibiotic treatment in animals when indicated ...
(My interjection - in other words, the need to return to independent family sustainable farming...)
↓ water/grain needs
↓ animal fecal waste
↓ rendering/mad cow disease
↓ rBGH (→ ↑IGF-1 in milk)
Health benefits
Meatpacking = most dangerous job in US ...
(My interjection - certainly not the laughable claim of working near those smoking tobacco...)
European Union bans antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed (1/06)
Food-Borne Illness
¼ of US population affected per year
Each day 200,000 sickened, 900 hospitalized, 14 die
↑d in part due to ↑ing centralization of meat supply
e.g., E. coli OH157
Campylobacter
Most common food-borne infection in US
2.5 million case of diarrhea and 100 deaths per year
Campylobacter Resistance to Fluoroquinolones Increasing
13% in 1998, 18% in 1999
Fluoroquinolone use up 40% over same period
Continues to increase
FDA proposed ban on fluoroquinolone use in poultry
Supported by APHA, PSR and others
Fluoroquinolones
Animal Use
Sarafloxacin (Saraflox) – Abbott Labs – voluntarily withdrawn from market
Enrofloxacin (Baytril) – Bayer– FDA withdraws approval (7/05)
Human Use
Ciprofloxacin (Cipro) - Bayer
Anthrax
Cipro – patent expires 2004
Doxycycline – generic
Penicillin - generic
Huge potential profits
280 million Americans, others
20-25% increase in Cipro sales one month after 2001 anthrax mailings, per the nation’s largest PBM
Cipro
Best selling antibiotic in the world for the last 8 years
Eleventh most prescribed drug in the US
20th in US sales
1999 gross sales = $1.04 billion
Bayer and Cipro
1997 onward – Bayer pays Barr Pharmaceuticals and two other competitors $200 million not to manufacture generic ciprofloxacin, despite a federal judge’s 1995 decision allowing it to do so
2002 – Bayer granted six months additional patent on Cipro, under pediatric extension bill, in exchange for conducting safety and efficacy tests on children
Cost of Cipro
Drugstore = $4.50/pill
US government = $0.95/pill for anthrax stockpile (twice what is paid under other government-sponsored public health programs)
Cost of Cipro
US government has the authority, under existing law, to license generic production of ciprofloxacin by other companies for as little as $0.20/pill in the event of a public health emergency
It has failed to do so
Canada did override Bayer’s patent and ordered 1 million tablets from a Canadian manufacturer
Why?
Weakening of case at WTO meetings that the massive suffering consequent to 25 million AIDS cases in Sub-Saharan Africa did not constitute enough of a public health emergency to permit those countries to obtain and produce cheaper generic versions of largely unavailable AIDS drugs
-Africa accounts for 1% of world drug sales
Other Consequences
Opens door to other situations involving parallel importing and compulsory licensing
Threatens pharmaceutical industry’s massive profits
the most profitable industry in the US
Weakens pharmaceutical industry’s grip on legislators
$80 million dollars spent on lobbying in 2000 election
Revolving door between legislators, lobbyists, executives and government officials
Bayer
Based in Leverkusen, Germany
120,000 employees worldwide
Annual sales = $28 billion
US = largest market
Pharmaceuticals
Third largest manufacturer of herbicides in the world
Dominates insecticide market
Bayer
Number one biotech company in Europe (after 2001 purchase of Aventis CropScience)
Controls over half of genetically-modified crop varieties up for approval for commercial use
Risks of GMOs
History of Bayer
WW I: invented modern chemical warfare; developed “School for Chemical Warfare”
WW II: part of IG Farben conglomerate, which exploited slave labor at Auschwitz, conducted unethical human subject experiments
History of Bayer
Early 1990s – admitted knowingly selling HIV-tainted blood clotting products which infected up to 50% of hemophiliacs in some developed countries
US Class action suits settled for $100,000 per claimant
European taxpayers left to foot most of bill
History of Bayer
1995 onward - failed to follow promise to withdraw its most toxic pesticides from the market
Failed to educate farmers in developing nations re pesticide health risks
2 to 10 million poisonings / 200,000 deaths per year due to pesticides (WHO)
History of Bayer
1998 –pays Scottish adult volunteers $750 to swallow doses of the insecticide Guthion to “prove product’s safety”
Suing the FDA to lift moratorium on human-derived data
2000 – cited by FDA and FTC for misleading claims regarding aspirin and heart attacks/strokes
History of Bayer
2000 – fined by OSHA for workplace safety violations related to MDA (carcinogen) exposures
2000 – fined by Commerce Dept. for violations of export laws
History of Bayer
2001 – FDA-reported violations in quality control contribute to worldwide clotting factor shortage for hemophiliacs
2002 - Baycol (cholesterol lowering drug) withdrawn from market
Bayer’s Corporate Agenda
Bluewash: signatory to UN’s Global Compact
Greenwash: “crop protection” (pesticides)
Promotion of anti-environmental health agenda: “Wise Use,” “Responsible Care” movements
Bayer’s Corporate Agenda
Corporate Front Groups: “Global Crop Protection Federation”
Harrassment / SLAPP suits against watchdog groups
e.g., Coalition Against Bayer Dangers
Bayer’s Corporate Agenda
Lobbying / Campaign donations / Influence peddling:
Member of numerous lobbying groups attacking “trade barriers” (i.e., environmental health and safety laws)
$600,000 over last five years to US politicians
$120,000 to GW Bush’s election campaign
Bayer
Fortune Magazine (2001): one of the “most admired companies” in the United States
Multinational Monitor (2001): one of the 10 worst corporations of the year
Conclusions
Triumph of corporate profits and influence-peddling over urgent public health needs
Stronger regulation needed over:
Agricultural antibiotic use
Drug pricing
Stiffer penalties for corporate malfeasance necessary (fines and jail time)
Important role of medical/public health organizations and the media
Frankenfoods
(aka “Brave New Foods”)
Genetically-engineered seeds are now being used to plant 25% of America’s corn crop, 30% of it’s soybeans, and 50% of canola
At least 60% of convenience foods now sold in the U.S. contain genetically-altered ingredients
No labeling required
FDA and EPA: Genetically-altered foods “have not been shown to be unsafe.”
1998 Nature study - transgenic traits 20x more likely to “flow” to other plants by cross-pollination
Frankenfoods
Bacillus thuringiensis corn - resistant to the corn-boring bug, but pollen from corn lands on milkweed, which monarch butterfly larvae and caterpillars eat death.
Beans and grains with more protein
caffeine-less coffee beans
strawberries packed with more natural sugars
red grass, mauve carnations
Companies - Shell, Monsanto, Mitsubishi, Sandoz, Aventis, Pharmacia, Hoechst
Frankenfoods
FDA being sued for allowing genetically-engineered foods on the market without adequate safety review
FDA reviewer worked for Monsanto before and after his FDA tenure
Majority of Americans unaware GM foods already widely marketed
Japan - labeling common; India - bans testing of altered crops; British Medical Association has called for a ban on testing and production
...
Just part of the information provided - these examples being typical of the 'global health interests' who know better than we how we must live, suffer and die...
Because corporations are supposedly 'more efficient' - according to propaganda - than government intended to be acting in the public interest, but instead influenced heavily by the corporate roots feeding so many of the 'business' officials available for higher public office, and offering lucrative rewards to those willing to betray public trust by betrayal to those for whom short-term profit/bonuses/greed block all reason and reality.
Self-interests such as commercial industry are specifically forbidden from forming/infiltrating/unduely influencing democratic government intended to be, and only legitimate when, of, by and for the people and acting in their interests and those of humanity - not commerce to human and environmental detriment - as a whole.
Way back there on this thread, JL (despite no-one having suggested that peer review or any legitimate 'scientific method' be abandoned as 'wrong') commented
'... People who believe things that are not true end up as conspiricy theorists. They have too, because as more an more people realize they are wrong, they need an explination for why all these people, and organizations, and governments, and companies, etc. are all saying they are wrong. Conspiricy theory provides that explanation, which they need.
'But sometimes, it doesn't go far enough. What if you believe something so wrong, that even the biggest conspiricy can not explain all the groups that publish data showing it is wrong? In those cases, you've got to say that peer review itself (and the scientific method of which it is a key part), is wrong. It's a sort of logical extension of conspiricy theory, as an excuse as to why you can't get any scientific support for your ideas. ...'
Peer review is only as good as the peers that review it; reputable and competent people have been/are all-too-commonly deceived by carefully crafted and coordinated misrepresentations; peer review is not, unfortunately, an infallable safeguard against fraud, although intended to reduce the problem.
There's a lot more documentation - much from leaked/seized confidential memos and other records - on multitudinous examples of industrial/governmental corruption/distortion/propagandizing - and the infiltration/influencing/effective control by such powerful interests of/over researchers/research, universities, professional groups/publications, international and national public protective agencies, etc., than on the criminal tendencies of the Mafia...
Now, would they lie to you?
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